Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
For decades, the figure of Pope Pius XII has been at the center of some volatile polemics. The controversy has raged since the end of [WW2] over whether the Pope did and said enough in defense of the Jews and other victims of the Nazis.
The Roman Pontiff, who guided the Church through the terrible years of WW2 and the Cold War, is the victim of a "black legend," which has proven difficult to combat and is so widespread that many consider it to be more true than the actual historical facts.
Instead of listing the many symptoms of the world's problems, a Holy See representative told the United Nations that it would do well to look more carefully at the underlying causes.
Archbishop Migliore, permanent observer of the Holy See to the UN, said this to a meeting of the 63rd UN General Assembly, in which he acknowledged the "intractable conflicts in many regions of the world."
He said these conflicts, "whether under the guise of civil turmoil, terrorist activity or international conflicts, perpetuate the flawed belief that violence and war can replace cooperation and dialogue for the common good."
(And: Full text of address)
The European Court of Human Rights has rejected a land claim by ethnic Germans who lost homes in Poland during WW2. The decision was welcomed by the leaders of both countries.
Chancellor Merkel went to St. Petersburg last week for meetings with President Medvedev.
The central question on the table was Germany's position on NATO expansion, particularly with regard to Ukraine and Georgia. Merkel made it clear at a joint press conference that Germany would oppose NATO membership for both of these countries, and that it would even oppose placing the countries on the path to membership.
The fact that Merkel and Germany have chosen this path is of great significance. Merkel acted in full knowledge of the US view on the matter and is prepared to resist any American pressure that might follow.
Germany views the US obsession with NATO expansion as simply not in Germany's interests. Germany does not intend to be drawn into a new Cold War under any circumstances. This has profound implications for the future of both NATO and US-German relations.
Germany is thus in the midst of a strategic crisis in which it must make some fundamental decisions. To understand the decisions Germany has to make, we need to understand the country's geopolitical problem and the decisions it has made in the past...
German press review
Markets seemed slightly more stable on Thursday, a day after central banks around the world lowered interest rates in a concerted effort. But will the rate cut ultimately have the desired effect? Many German commentators are pessimistic.
Through the latest financial crisis, I warned readers that the costs of banking bailouts in Europe would far outstrip those of the US.
The major hurdle that needs to be crossed by Europe at some point in the near future pertains not so much to the health of their banking systems as the viability of their sovereign finances.
European sovereigns simply cannot afford the banking bailout that is being proposed: which is perhaps the main reason for Germany to demur on continent-wide bailout that would unfairly expose German savers to the profligacy shown by Spanish and Irish bankers.
The EU's founding document, the Treaty of Rome, commits its 27 members to "ever-closer union". Yet the attitude of individual states to the implosion of global financial markets might best be described as "the devil take the hindmost".
The reassertion of national interest will hearten Euro-sceptics. But, by the same token, it will prompt federalists to urge acceleration towards "ever closer union", initially by adopting the Lisbon Treaty which the Irish rejected in June.
According to an Italian former member of the European Commission, the current crisis faces the EU with a choice between "integration and disintegration".
(And: Brussels scolds EU states)
Israeli air force has sent its warplanes along the northern border under the pretext that a Lebanese aircraft was approaching its airspace.
Pawn the nukes?...
Pakistan has dispatched its top finance officials on a mission to raise billions of dollars from its closest allies in a last ditch bid to stave off bankruptcy.
Here's an alarming thought: Pakistan is in even scarier shape than most of the so-called experts are willing to admit.
The grim truth is that Pakistan is becoming something alarmingly close to a failed state. And that could have disastrous consequences for the US, NATO and Afghanistan's struggle to hold back its own Taliban insurgency.
We need a stern, serious international effort -- led by the US -- to put Pakistan back together again, reform its institutions and reorder its priorities. If not, we will face a terrifying prospect: Pakistan's collapse into a full-blown failed state, armed with nuclear weapons, riven by ethnic tensions, infused with resentment and zealotry, with roving bands of Taliban sympathizers and bin Ladenists in its midst.
With South Korean General Kim Tae-Young accusing the North Koreans of working on a new nuclear warhead, the reported North Korean missile test firings earlier in the week, and the announcement that the North is barring IAEA inspectors from all portions of its Yongbyon nuclear facility it is unsurprising that tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at one of their highest levels in recent memory, but the situation seems to be taking a turn for the worse as the US and North Korea have both issued public warnings.
China severs diplomatic, military ties with US
Enraged by the $6.5 billion American arms sales package to Taiwan, China cancelled its planned military and diplomatic contacts with the US, accusing the Bush administration of "poisoning" the atmosphere which led to the latest stand-off.
President Ahmadinejad on Wednesday blamed a lack of attention to religion and God for the crisis in global financial markets.
"Their economy is collapsing... the reason for their defeat is that they have abandoned faith in God and piety." The financial crisis is a sign that the domination of "international thieves" is over.
The repercussions of the credit crunch are "evidence that God's promise is being delivered, that tyrants and corrupt (people) should go and be replaced by the pious and believers. God willing, a global government of justice will be set up with the resistance of Iranian people as the flag-bearers (of the movement) led by Imam Mahdi."
Misinformation is all the more dangerous when it becomes a diversionary tactic by aspiring American Politicians. The candidates and their running mates for the highest office in the land, unable to unite the people in a common goal, create a threat to divert attention from the gathering storm.
Several recent developments leave the strong suggestion that Israel is preparing to attack Iran -- with significant help from the US.
Barack Obama told the Iraqi government that George W Bush should not be allowed to strike a deal on the future of American troops in the country without the approval of the US Congress, it has emerged.
The disclosure is likely to raise questions over the propriety of Obama's contact with the government of a country in which the current president is still conducting a war.
The right-wing campaign presently being waged by the Republican Party has ominous implications
Campaign rallies for the Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates have taken on an increasingly angry and even violent tone.
Virulent denunciations of Barack Obama delivered by Palin at campaign rallies in Florida this week were met with shouts from the crowd of "treason" and, in one case, "kill him."
At an event in New Mexico, McCain delivered a stock rhetorical line aimed at invoking fears of the Democratic candidate: "Who is Barack Obama?" Without missing a beat, a shout came back from the audience: "terrorist."
The atmosphere in these Republican events resembles more and more that of a lynch mob. And the continuous attempts to paint Obama as a "traitor" and "terrorist" have the potential of inciting real violence, including attempts on the Democratic candidate's life.
WMR has learned from knowledgeable Federal Emergency Management Agency sources that the Bush administration is putting the final touches on a plan that would see martial law declared in the US with various scenarios anticipated as triggers.
The triggers include a continuing economic collapse with massive social unrest, bank closures resulting in violence against financial institutions, and another fraudulent presidential election that would result in rioting in major cities and campuses around the country.
Part of the psychology of the Greenspan Bubble has been the vaunted overestimation of America's staying power as a global hegemon.
Standing alongside the hubris that brought down the financial edifices of Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs is the foreign policy corollary: the triumphalism of the neoconservatives, who imagined that American military power could solve all the world's problems: or, at least, most of our own.
The declinists were right: the burden of empire is unsustainable, and had to end in the way it is ending – with a 5,000-point dive in the stock market, and a crash heard 'round the world.
Reality has caught up with the lords of the American empire, and all the frenzied attempts at "creating other new realities" are to little avail.
The American way of life, a system unsustainable by any stretch of the imagination, was facilitated on two facts: cheap gas and a valuable currency, the currency than morphing into cheap credit.
Prime Minister Putin has begun sounding the final death knell of the United States as the West's leading Nation as America
Reports in the Kremlin today are stating that Putin has ordered the transfer of Russia's massive stocks of gold, platinum and palladium reserves to protect Russian markets that have fallen over 67% in levels not seen since the Global market crashes of 1929.
The most ominous of these reports though continue to come from Russian Military Analysts who continue their assertions that the crashing of the Global markets is a 'deliberate action' and is soon to be followed by the outbreak of Total War.
Even worse for the American people themselves, Russian Intelligence reports say, is that not only are they to see the complete collapse of their Nation, they will soon see their country 'broken into pieces' in a move to be led by the Governor Sarah Palin.
Not being told to the American people about Governor Palin is her family ties to both the British Royal Family and the last totally British controlled US President Franklin Roosevelt, the man who led the US
Oil prices fell today to their lowest level in more than a year, as the slowing global economy led the International Energy Agency to cut its forecast for global demand.
Spot gold rose to an over 2-month high today while US futures jumped nearly 4%, adding to the previous day's late rally as investors scrambled for safety after heavy losses in equity markets.
European stock markets slumped further today following massive losses on Wall Street and Asia on mounting fears that this week's efforts by central banks and governments to break the logjam in credit markets have failed to ease lending rates between banks.
(And: Fear grips global markets)
Fear and foreboding took hold Thursday on Wall Street, as the market again plunged and investors became convinced that the nation is on the verge of a deep and prolonged recession.
"I've never seen a panic like this," said the chief economist at Standard & Poor's. "I've seen stock market drops, but not an overall panic."
With a further dramatic plunge on Wall Street yesterday, the US and global economic crisis has entered a new stage, spreading from the financial system to the productive foundations of the economy.
The new stage of the world economic crisis, engulfing manufacturing and the retail industries that ultimately depend on it, reveals the underlying source of the financial crisis. In a word, the rotten core of American industrial capitalism.
General Motor's future is bleak, analysts predict that GM may soon go broke as new car sales stumble.
A well-worn bit of wisdom from rural America advises one that it is pointless to "close the barn door after the cows have escaped".
By participating in yesterday's global round of short-term interest rate cuts, US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke cannot be said to have been guilty of this offense.
Instead, what he has done is to close the barn door after the cows have escaped, been captured down the road by cattle rustlers, then sold, slaughtered and ground up into dog food chunks.
Yesterday's cuts, coordinated across the globe with the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the Swiss Central Bank, and the Riksbank of Sweden, with the Bank of China participating independently with cuts of its own, are the latest policy initiatives employed by desperate and besieged world economic officials to contain a truly awesome fire-breathing ogre that goes by the name of deleveraging, a monster that seems to get worse, and more importantly, laugh away all attempts to contain it, with every passing day.
Legendary investor Jim Rogers warned during a CNBC interview this morning that global central banks are creating the environment for an inflationary holocaust by their ceaseless overprinting of currency. "We're setting the stage for when we come out of this of a massive inflation holocaust."
This Wall Street bailout — yes, bailout, not "rescue" — is yet another boondoggle by the neocons, pulled out of bankers' back pockets, and being enacted in an atmosphere of panic orchestrated and spread around the world to make sure it got passed ASAP. A bankers' 9/11: implode a few bank towers to make sure the system as a whole survives.
The United States and Britain appear to be converging toward a common solution for the financial chaos sweeping the world, one day before a crucial meeting of financial leaders begins in Washington that the White House hopes will result in a more unified response.
The British and American plans, though far from identical, have two common elements: injection of government money into banks in return for ownership stakes and guarantees of repayment for various types of loans.
The crisis is beyond monetary policy. All eyes are now on today's G7 meeting and the weekend IMF meetings. If those produce the customary waffle, or half-hearted plans – a nontrivial possibility unfortunately - a systemic collapse of the global financial system becomes a high probability.
The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday it was ready to lend to countries hit by the raging global credit crunch and had activated an emergency financing mechanism first used in the 1990s Asian crisis.
The Fund already sent a mission to Iceland, where the government has seized control of its largest bank, and has warned that the worst financial crisis since the 1930s Great Depression could inflict lasting economic harm on the world.
It's been a momentous and contradictory 10 days. Where do we go from here?
Are markets in for a period of calm, or will the roller coaster ride continue unabated despite the bailouts and interest rate cuts?
Nobody knows the answer, but most agree that even if markets regain a degree of composure, it's only a matter of time before further storms break out.
The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is claiming another casualty: American-style capitalism.
Given that the US has held itself up as a global economic model, the change could shift the balance of how governments around the globe conduct free enterprise.
It is hard to comprehend the scale of pain that is about to be inflicted on people who least deserve it, says Jeff Randall, but at its heart will be unemployment.
If all this seems gloomy, that's because it is. Spectacularly so. Trust in paper assets has been dissipated to the point that the cost of insuring a default on US Treasury bonds -- Uncle Sam going bust -- has risen fourfold since the start of 2008.
The unthinkable is being thought. Goodbye credulity, hello austerity.
(Cartoons: Wall Street CEOs)
[CFR Opinion Roundup][Newseum][Global Incident Map][Earthweek][Day-Night Map][Tonight's Sky][Moon phase]
[Latest edition of The Religion WAR]
What is probably the oldest known Bible is being digitised, reuniting its scattered parts for the first time since its discovery 160 years ago. It is markedly different from its modern equivalent. What's left out?
WAR e-mail format for military: YAHOO! WARriors
WAR fund: PayPal (payable to thedailywarrior@gmail.com)
